How to Prepare for Your First Backpacking Trip

The thought of backpacking in the outdoors can be scary for some people. The idea of carrying everything you need from water to toilet paper on your back for an extended period of time can be challenging for some to overcome. Especially knowing you have to carry that weight for miles at a time.

Say you wanted to go backpacking but had never actually done anything longer than a day hike. Whether your first backpacking trip is 30 days or 3 days, you should definitely at least try backpacking it. You don’t have to like it when you’re done or ever do it again if you so choose, but you should try it at least once. It may be the best way to get out and explore nature.

Backpacking lets you ditch the crowds both on the trails and in the campgrounds. Backpacking trails are by their very nature longer than typical day trip trails. This means that the amount of people that travel them at any given time is much lower than shorter and consequently more popular trails.

Because backpacking trails are so long and often remote, the trails and areas surrounding them are not developed. This allows you see more of the natural raw state of nature and be able to enjoy all of its beauty with far fewer man-made additions or influences.

Backpacking is, simply put, a lot of fun. There is something both exciting and terrifying about backpacking. Knowing that you are going to go on an adventure to be one with nature, fully engulfed in it, miles away from any signs of civilization can be a magnificent and awe-inspiring experience.

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About Me

I am Jeff Clark, founder of Internet Brothers, producer of this blog, and passionate about hiking. I live in Western NC near the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains. Pisgah and Nantahala National Forests are just out my door, so the content will focus on these areas, but let me know what you would like to see on the site.